{"title":"Greg Mendez","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"greg-mendez-greg-mendez","title":"Greg Mendez - Greg Mendez","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor Greg Mendez, reflection doesn’t mean a static image in a mirror, or even a face he recognizes. It’s more a kaleidoscopic mirage, where paths taken shapeshift with the prospect of paths untread, and the subconscious merges with the intentional. On his self-titled new album, the Philadelphia-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist investigates the shaky camera of memory, striving to carve out a collage that points to a truth. But there isn’t a regimented actuality here; instead, Mendez highlights the merit in many truths, and many lives, and how even the hardest truths can still contain some humor.  While this is technically Mendez’s third full-length album, his back catalog boasts an extensive range of EPs and live recordings. He’s a prolific and thoughtful songwriter, understanding the joy in impulse, and shying away from the clinical sheen of overproduction. 2017’s “ ̄\\ _(ツ)_ \/ ̄” and 2020’s Cherry Hell garnered acclaim for their quiet, lo-fi urgency, exploring themes of addiction and heartbreak with an intentional, authentic haze, and it’s this approach that has solidified Mendez as a staple in the DIY community for years.  Greg Mendez was written in fragments, some stretching across more than a decade, with Mendez reworking old ideas and arrangements, and others blossoming much more recently. The weight of time––and perhaps the anxiety in running out of it––clouds the album, as Mendez prods at some painful experiences from his childhood and early adulthood. The common thread connecting the characters is their evident imperfections, and the various degrees of damage they cause, both knowingly and unknowingly. But where do we draw the line between a good person and a bad person? For Mendez, it’s never been that easy.  Greg Mendez is an intimate dialogue between the chapters we’ve experienced, and how they can inform the reality we perceive. It’s a reminder that we are constantly shifting, ever-changing selves and that if we ruminate too long, we may find ourselves stuck in the seriousness of it all. Here, Mendez allows us to take the time to notice what happens outside of the framework we may have built for ourselves, and the beauty that can occur when we finally do.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFormat \/ \u003cb\u003eLP\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eReleased \/ \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003cb data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e12\/06\/2024\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCatalogue \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDOC-371LP\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBarcode \/ \u003cstrong\u003e656605167114\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eArtist \/ \u003cstrong\u003eGreg Mendez\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLabel \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDead Oceans\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eGenre \/ \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003cb data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePop \/ Rock\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41851658502205,"sku":"POP-M-656605167114","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1487\/4550\/files\/DOC371.jpg?v=1733379566"},{"product_id":"greg-mendez-first-time-alone-7","title":"Greg Mendez - First Time \/ Alone [7\"]","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst Time \/ Alone, Greg Mendez’s new EP and first release with Dead Oceans, came together in late summer and early fall of 2023; the songs here appear in the order in which they were written, recorded straight to four-track in the small spare room of his West Philadelphia apartment. It’s a four song arc, a spectral passageway, one brief and fluid body of work that hangs together from the mournful opening of “Mountain Dew Hell” to the pitched-up vocals on “Pain Meds,” a tiny song floundering in the enormity of grief. The experience of listening through is like waking up from a half-remembered dream, a shadow in the corner of the room, a strange solitude, a temporal New York autumn with gray skies and naked trees. But while the release is sparse and spontaneous, it’s tactile and consuming, a glimpse into the beautiful, lonely worlds that live in the core of a Greg Mendez song.  First Time \/ Alone is the inverse of his 2023 self-titled album, a meticulous and labored-over collection of songs that went on to become a surprise slowburn success. Mendez has released music in various capacities across 15 years living in Philadelphia and New York, but the self-titled was what propelled him to a wider attention, a critical breakthrough on best-of lists from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Paste, and more. That forward momentum came to a quick halt following an intensive surgery on his right wrist in the summer of 2023 – a four-month purgatory of bad TV, canceled touring, and physical therapy ensued, a painful stretch of boredom leaving Mendez unable to play guitar. “Mountain Dew Hell” and “First Time,” the funereal A-side of the EP, are time capsules of that fever-dream; “Alone” was the first song Mendez wrote once he was able to play guitar again. Likely none of the songs would have existed as-is if Mendez’s right hand hadn’t been out of commission, but they’re artful in their directness and simplicity. He initially thought he would need to refine them, building them out to the same scale as self-titled, but the more he returned to the work, the more it felt complete and true as-is.  Mendez is an intuitive songwriter, melodies channeled through ether, a storyteller who across his catalog has chronicled vivid violence and instability – a wallet chain to the head, a crack house arrest, the misdeeds from addiction that hang around like a ghost of past lives – but it’s threaded together with love songs, too, with odes to friendship, true dedication, the things that can buoy one through the worst. Mendez has a habit of noticing those things, of finding the light, exacting poetry from even the bleakest, shit-caked situations. In his songs there is an innate ability to balance grit with gentleness, cruelties rewritten through preternatural sweetness, a heart thrumming unendingly, confidently, through the dark.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFormat \/ \u003cb\u003e7\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eReleased \/ \u003cstrong\u003e12\/06\/2024\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eCatalogue \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDOC-372\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBarcode \/ \u003cstrong\u003e656605167213\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eArtist \/ \u003cstrong\u003eGreg Mendez\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eLabel \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDead Oceans\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eGenre \/ \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003cb data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePop \/ Rock\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41851677868093,"sku":"POP-M-656605167213","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1487\/4550\/files\/DOC372.jpg?v=1733379951"},{"product_id":"greg-mendez-beauty-land","title":"Greg Mendez - Beauty Land","description":"\u003cp\u003eGreg Mendez has always been an economical songwriter - he wields restraint and simplicity as tools, the core of his songs sharpened into simple, cutting truths. On Beauty Land, his new album and debut LP for Dead Oceans, we're guided by a wry but forgiving narrator, an underdog who has learned to balance cynicism and faith. These songs are self-effacing without self-pity, carefully constructed altars of imperfection channeled through pop melodies, shimmering but urgent guitars, and a voice that reaches for choir boy innocence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe bulk of Beauty Land was recorded directly to tape, almost entirely alone in Mendez's makeshift home studio in Philadelphia - a small room with no natural light. It's his first full length since his unexpected self-titled breakthrough in 2023, which was a slow burn success following 15 years of writing and recording music in relative obscurity between Philly and New York. Beauty Land picks up where we left off three years ago - plumbing the depths of grief, love, and addiction - but it's intense, quiet clarity shows Mendez at his songwriting best. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eParts of Beauty Land feel like a lucid dream, dented characters carve their way through a world that's cartoonish and warped - the broken-clock march of \"I Wanna Feel Pretty,\" the chiming toy piano on \"Gentle Love.\" \"Mary \/ Dreaming\" begins as a sparse, finger-picked lament before cutting abruptly to a deflated, Beach-Boys-but-make-it-f***ed-up resolution that brings both melancholy and joy; a sense that all things can be true at once. None of the 14 tracks here break three minutes, but they tell stories that span lifetimes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDeath floats through the record, whether it appears as a memory or a threat. Everything feels precarious. There's a fragility to how these songs are built: the way the funeral organ hits alongside the morphine on \"Looking Out Your Window,\" the devastating simplicity of \"Frog,\" with it's slowed-down keyboard and bare refrain: \"Please forgive me for my faults.\" Beauty Land feels, at times, impossibly lonely. Which makes it really count when it doesn't - like when Mendez sings in harmony with his wife and bandmate, Veronica near the end of \"So Mean\" and it feels like a cherished reunion, a fleeting moment of redemption, a temporary parting of the seas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat \/ \u003cb\u003eLP\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eReleased \/ \u003cstrong\u003e05\/29\/2026\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCatalogue \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDEDO-373\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBarcode \/ \u003cstrong\u003e656605167312\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eArtist \/ \u003cstrong\u003eGreg Mendez\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLabel \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDead Oceans\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGenre \/ \u003cstrong\u003ePop \/ Rock\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43223732879421,"sku":"POP-M-656605167312","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1487\/4550\/files\/4498972-3559329.jpg?v=1779465608"},{"product_id":"greg-mendez-beauty-land-clear-vinyl","title":"Greg Mendez - Beauty Land [Clear Vinyl]","description":"\u003cp\u003eGreg Mendez has always been an economical songwriter - he wields restraint and simplicity as tools, the core of his songs sharpened into simple, cutting truths. 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Beauty Land picks up where we left off three years ago - plumbing the depths of grief, love, and addiction - but it's intense, quiet clarity shows Mendez at his songwriting best. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eParts of Beauty Land feel like a lucid dream, dented characters carve their way through a world that's cartoonish and warped - the broken-clock march of \"I Wanna Feel Pretty,\" the chiming toy piano on \"Gentle Love.\" \"Mary \/ Dreaming\" begins as a sparse, finger-picked lament before cutting abruptly to a deflated, Beach-Boys-but-make-it-f***ed-up resolution that brings both melancholy and joy; a sense that all things can be true at once. None of the 14 tracks here break three minutes, but they tell stories that span lifetimes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDeath floats through the record, whether it appears as a memory or a threat. Everything feels precarious. 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Which makes it really count when it doesn't - like when Mendez sings in harmony with his wife and bandmate, Veronica near the end of \"So Mean\" and it feels like a cherished reunion, a fleeting moment of redemption, a temporary parting of the seas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat \/ \u003cb\u003eLP\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eReleased \/ \u003cstrong\u003e05\/29\/2026\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCatalogue \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDEDO-373C1\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBarcode \/ \u003cstrong\u003e656605167336\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eArtist \/ \u003cstrong\u003eGreg Mendez\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLabel \/ \u003cstrong\u003eDead Oceans\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGenre \/ \u003cstrong\u003ePop \/ Rock\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43223796219965,"sku":"POP-M-656605167336","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1487\/4550\/files\/gregmendez.webp?v=1779466792"},{"product_id":"damaged-greg-mendez-beauty-land-clear-vinyl","title":"[DAMAGED] Greg Mendez - Beauty Land [Clear Vinyl]","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e**All of these copies have bent jackets, dinged corners or seam splits.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGreg Mendez has always been an economical songwriter - he wields restraint and simplicity as tools, the core of his songs sharpened into simple, cutting truths. 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Beauty Land picks up where we left off three years ago - plumbing the depths of grief, love, and addiction - but it's intense, quiet clarity shows Mendez at his songwriting best. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eParts of Beauty Land feel like a lucid dream, dented characters carve their way through a world that's cartoonish and warped - the broken-clock march of \"I Wanna Feel Pretty,\" the chiming toy piano on \"Gentle Love.\" \"Mary \/ Dreaming\" begins as a sparse, finger-picked lament before cutting abruptly to a deflated, Beach-Boys-but-make-it-f***ed-up resolution that brings both melancholy and joy; a sense that all things can be true at once. None of the 14 tracks here break three minutes, but they tell stories that span lifetimes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDeath floats through the record, whether it appears as a memory or a threat. Everything feels precarious. 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